Gimme Those Funky Horns

FILM:


Horns - 2014
Written by Keith Bunin
from the Book by Joe Hill
Directed by Alexandre Aja

Horns is bound to anger the internet rage-nerds (but then what isn't?) with its resistance to simple classification and expectation-defying insistence on being completely itself.  The core structure is that of a murder mystery, but in its greater context it's also a love story and a dark parable that steps outside naturalistic conventions.  While I had some doubts about whether its primary conceit was strictly "horror," the final scene convinced me that, while it was certainly horror, why should it need to be strict about it?

The rage-nerds love to throw out the debate between Siskel & Ebert over Full Metal Jacket and Benji the Hunted as an attempt to discredit Roger Ebert, but it really only demonstrates that the rage-nerds don't understand art.  Ebert gave thumbs down to FMJ and up to Benji in the same episode, and Siskel tried to shame him with the specious suggestion that he was saying Benji was better than FMJ.  What's often omitted from this example, however, is that Roger called Gene out for his false equivalency, explaining (as Siskel damned well should have known) that the rating of a single movie is not inherently a comparison to all other movies, but an indication of how successfully that movie achieves its own purpose.  Art is not a sport, and the pathetic need to score it for so many emotionally and intellectually undeveloped males per their demands and expectations is deeply unhealthy for the art form.  In Ebert's opinion, FMJ was not entirely successful as a war movie, or an anti-war war movie, or a Kubrick movie, and I can see his point without necessarily having strong feelings about it one way or another.  Separately, he saw Benji the Hunted as a very successfully executed Benji movie.  While having no personal interest IN a Benji movie, I can see how one might be well made per its own intentions.  While you and/or I may feel that he misjudged FMJ, Benji had absolutely nothing to do with it.  In other words, they're not in competition with each other -- not one human soul went to the theater in 1987 and said, "Hm, do I feel like seeing a bleak vision of the Vietnam War, or a cute children's story about a fluffy dog?!" -- they're in competition with themselves.  I bring this up because A) I consider Ebert to have been pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to film review, and 2) the absolute failure of the majority of internet loudmouths to grasp this concept has become toxic to the media arts.

Approaching Horns as a film that is what it means to be, it's a complete success.  Approaching it as a film with tho obligation of meeting the expectations of angry young boy-men, it's a magnet for scorn.  And the moral of this story (like so many stories) is "Don't read Comments on the Internet."

But I digress...

Horns stars Daniel Radcliffe in what I believe is his best performance to date.  Radcliffe plays Ig Perrish, a young radio DJ from near Seattle who is accused of murder.  The murder of which he is accused is of the love of his life, Merrin (the ethereal Juno Temple), his girlfriend since childhood.  The whole town hates Ig and wants him to burn.  Even his parents' phrasings betray their own doubts about his innocence.  Universally despised, but legally bound not to leave, Ig is in a living Hell.

So maybe it shouldn't be entirely surprising when he starts to sprout horns from his forehead.  Devil's horns.  People react very differently to Ig's new appearance.  Some see it as representative of what they already think he is.  Others don't see them as anything terribly unusual, and some don't see them at all.  This becomes part of the mystery.  Along with the new fashion statement, Ig's other statements take on a new gravity as well.  People immediately start sharing their shameful secrets, asking him whether they should go ahead and act on them.  We all have our hidden impulses, but we like having the Devil around to blame.

Initially horrified, Ig comes to embrace these changes almost like super powers, enabling him to uncover layers of the mysteries surrounding him.

Well, I just enjoyed the hell out of this film.  What was more-or-less a mystery gained all kinds of richness through its characters and their secrets, and through the utterly surreal story device of Ig's horns and abilities.  It's filled with genuine humor, never resorting to cheap jokes, and darkness that never resorts to bleakness.  The way the story reveals personal histories creates characters worth caring about and hoping for  Even when a plot point came up that hinted pretty strongly at the mystery's solution, I was still fascinated to find out how it all fit together.  This is just plain good storytelling, in the true spirit of fable craft.


OPENS TOMORROW

TELEVISION:


Constantine: Pilot Episode - 2014
based on the Hellblazer comics by first written by Jamie Delano,
based on the John Constantine character originally created by Alan Moore

I don't know if John Constantine has actually become "wildly popular" over the years since I walked away from comics, or if that's merely the hyperbole of the lazy and triflin' entertainment press.  The movie with Keanu Reeves was... okay ...but felt wrong, primarily because the character known to readers is a smart-mouthed demon fighter from the north of England and Keanu Reeves is, well, Keanu Reeves.  It was with extreme skepticism that I approached the new NBC series.  It just didn't (and I'm still skeptical about this) seem possible that a network TV show could have the brutal darkness and grit of the comic books I knew.  It was announced that Constantine wouldn't be shown smoking, which is not only a defining character affectation but a MAJOR plot point.  And the actor, Matt Ryan, still doesn't look quite right -- his clothes look too fresh and his dye job or wig still strikes me as costumey.

So it came as a significant surprise to me that I was intrigued and entertained for the entire pilot episode.

The story was instantly familiar to a reader of the original series like me, even if it's been transposed from England to the United States.  At least Constantine is English, as he always should have been.  The character was created by Alan Moore during his run on the Swamp Thing, and always had the quality of bringing that gloomy, rainy, Jack-the-Rippery steak-and-kidney flavor of the macabre to DC Comics' supernatural world.  Alan would probably get his ire up for me saying this (then again Alan hardly needs an excuse anymore), but I always took John Constantine to be the character most like Alan himself (prior to Promethea anyway), albeit wrapped in Sting's body.  Constantine is something of a paranormal investigator, magician (the real stuff) and "Master of the Dark Arts" towing doom in his wake.

The series opens with him in a mental hospital (per his choosing) trying to leave behind the idea that demons and ghosts and whatnot are real.  This is a man with a past of which he wishes to be unburdened, and it's not going to be as simple as disbelieving it away.

The first episode was actually a lot more fun than I remembered the comics to be, but it's hard to complain about that when you're having fun.  The episode did a fantastic job of establishing the series as well as completing a single-episode story.  It was overflowing with tone and texture, hinting at things to come without being overburdened by them, and sneaking in one hell of a tease without dwelling on all the "Guess who THIS is! Guess who THAT is!" that we got from Gotham.

You can seldom know for sure what you're going to get in the long run based on a pilot episode, but in terms of promise, Constantine's got it in spades.  Let's just hope he doesn't let us down like all those dead people he used to know.

Well, THAT Was Different

I decided it was time to try some of the more oddball items in my inbox, so stay on your toes, batters, there's some wild pitches coming your way...

FILM:


Thale - 2012
Written & Directed by Aleksander Nordaas

This low-key tale from Norway centers around Leo and Elvis, a couple guys who seem ill-suited to bio-hazard clean-up work, given how much they (but mainly Elvis) vomit throughout the film, but there you have it.  They're doing clean up in a house deep in the forest; evidently the site of some grisly murder, given the amount of blood and gore they're mopping up.  In the process, they discover a hidden basement full of cobwebs, old lab equipment and corroded canned foods.  There's also a tub filled with something like milk.  A young woman emerges from the tub capturing their attention (but mainly Elvis).  She doesn't speak, and it's impossible to tell how long she must have been in there, given the lab's state of disrepair.  Elvis in particular is compelled to care for her, possibly in connection to his feelings about recently discovering that he has a child, but possibly for a more direct and mysterious reason.  The mystery becomes who is she, what is she, and why is she in this strange environment?  When Leo and Elvis' superiors send in an armed response team, the answers become deadly.

It's a very slow-paced movie, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but one is bound to notice it.  Given that it's rooted in Norwegian folklore, I might have appreciated the developments more if I had been familiar with the legends, but I'm going to leave that to you to decide whether or not that's something you'd want to know.  The story is, frankly, on the spare side, which again, isn't inherently bad, but having been introduced to this legend and character, I would have enjoyed seeing more done with it.  The actress who plays Thale (TAH-leh), the young woman is convincing as a strange and otherworldly beauty.  I would definitely have preferred for her to have more to do, as opposed to the two depressed Norwegian dudes.  It wasn't a mind blower, but it was far from a bad movie, and made for a very welcome change of pace.

Lo - 2009
Written & Directed by Travis Betz

Now this I loved. 

Justin, a heartbroken young man summons a demon to do his bidding, and his bidding is the return of his lost love, April.  The demon, Lo, is antagonistic if not outright threatening and questions Justin's motivations, putting off the job at hand with traded tales about Justin and April's past, and questionable suggestions that Justin may not have known his beloved as well as he thought he did.

The film was clearly made on a shoestring budget, but it is at all moments entertaining and enthralling.  Set almost entirely in the nether-space between Justin's apartment and Hell (in other words, the dark), Lo could easily be produced as a stage play, and indeed frames its flashback sequences as though they were.

It's not strictly horror, in that it's not really scary, but by that measure you could discount 80% of the genre.  It's an effective hybrid with moments of tension, humor, romance and even a couple musical numbers.  It's really remarkable what they were able to accomplish in terms of story and emotion with such a minimalist approach.  Joyless viewers need not apply.

WNUF Halloween Special - 2013
Written & Directed by Chris LaMartina & co.

If Call Girl of Cthulhu was Chris LaMartina's homage to the 80s, the WNUF Halloween Special is his attempt at an identity theft.  The entire production is made to look like a bootleg VHS copy of a news broadcast and special from Halloween, 1987, including commercials.

First there's a hokey local news broadcast covering the requisite Halloween stories -- the dentist with warnings about tooth decay, the fundamentalist Christians who claim it's all devil worship, etc. -- all hosted by the bland and corny anchors.  Their broadcast feeds right into the on-location special with a reporter at the house which was once the scene of a horrible double murder and has been notoriously rumored to be haunted ever since.  Crusading reporter Frank Stewart means to go inside with a husband and wife (& cat) team of paranormal investigators to hold a seance and determine once and for all whether the house is truly haunted.  Frank also has a Catholic priest in tow, just in case an exorcism should become necessary.

This is what you call "committing to a bit."  The top priority is making the whole thing look like an actual UHF-band broadcast from the 80s.  As such, much of the humor is derived from "Ha, the 80s, what were they thinking?"  The commercials are all terribly produced (on purpose) and several are for equally terribly produced programming on Channel 28.  There are a few places where the video fast forwards past boring parts, although I could have done with a lot more of that.  The joke, frankly, gets stretched pretty thin long before anything really starts to happen.  The other source of humor is Frank Stewart getting fed up and frustrated when things don't work the way they're supposed to, like opening the phone lines for questions during the seance and getting the totally predictable "MAIDEN RULES!" calls.

While I generally felt that the whole thing got stretched too thin, I did, ultimately, feel modestly rewarded with an emergent narrative from seemingly unrelated elements throughout the broadcast.